Sirlin.Net - Game Design

Fantasy Strike [http://www.fantasystrike.com] is our new fighting game. We've just announced it and begun crowdfunding for it on Patreon [http://www.patreon.com/sirlin]. This podcast explains what Fantasy Strike is all about. We cover the high concept about making a fighting game more accessible from top to bottom than anything else we've seen, the specific game mechanics we chose to accomplish that, and the resulting dynamics of how it plays. Because it's unusual to crowdfund a game through Patreon, we also explain why we're doing that and what the advantages are. Hosts: David Sirlin, Richard "Leontes" Lopez, and Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington.

Kickstarters projects are notoriously late. I give advice on how to ship your Kickstarter project on time. I've shipped 5 out of 5 Kickstarters on time, so it's time to share the best practices of how you can do that too. Learn about how complete your board game should be before you take it to Kickstarter, about the "magic word," and about shipping shipping shipping! While most of the episode is about Kickstarters for board games, later in the episode we cover the extra challenges of doing a Kickstarter for a video game. And we reveal that we're going a different route with our Fantasy Strike video game, which is using Patreon [http://www.patreon.com/sirlin] for crowdfunding right now. Hosts: David Sirlin and Richard "Leontes" Lopez

We discuss Overwatch, Blizzard's first-person shooter. It far exceeded our expectations and we attempt to explain how it manages to do that. This isn't a "review," but rather us analyzing the design decisions involved, trying to define the secret sauce of Overwatch's success. Hosts: David Sirlin and Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

We discuss the design of Heroes of the Storm. It's a bold entry in the MOBA genre and impresses us greatly. We cover the many things is does differently than the rest of the genre that we view as improvements. No last hits, no deny, shared XP, talent system, 20 minute game length, map variety, and more. Sirlin then complains about a couple annoying things about controlling your character. Hosts: David Sirlin, Richard "Leontes" Lopez, and Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

We discuss the Codex card game, on Kickstarter at the time of this recording. Codex is a customizable (but not collectible) card game that has way different design goals than other CCGs. It's been in development ridiculously long, over 10 years, and we discuss the various properties it has that makes it so special. Hosts: David Sirlin, Richard "Leontes" Lopez, and Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi Also, here a Codex article index [http://www.sirlin.net/codex/]. New articles posted there almost every day of Codex's kickstarter. Here's a link to the Codex kickstarter [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sirlin/codex-2] itself.